LoTR RPG

I use Strands of Fate myself. I have a weird variant background I am running, where Galadriel accepts the one ring which results in a four way battle between the West, Galadriel, Saruman, and Sauron. This way the setting is basically the same, but the situation is different so my PCs arent just a sideshow while Aragorn and Co take care of business.

MERPS used to be a thing.

Middle Earth Role Play System

Cubicle7's One Ring is the perfect system for the Middle Earth. I love it.

MERPS makes GURPS look lke Dungeon World

MERP is the only answer. pic related.

If you cannot find some adventure in THIS then you suck...

Magic is so common and prevalent in MERP though what are you talking about?

>muh, only maia/gods can be REAL wizards
>muh, there's no magic in Middle Earth; just elves, elven magic, undead, undead magic, healing magic, magic swords, magic rings, magic staves, magic knives, magic bread, magic cloaks, magic rope, magic canoes, magic horns, fucking dragons, talking intelligent animals, magic doors, magic locks, magic arrows, magic gems, magic purses, magic water, magic stones, magic magic magic of magic!
What are YOU talking about?

Anybody have a pdf of the revised One Ring rules? All I can find is the older version before they combined the books.

In MERPS you can fly, shoot fireballs, open portals, summon minions, and every character can hace access to magic.

It's not that middle earth can't have magic but what MERPS let's you do is dnd tier, it's even a part of their play examples.

Don't get your panties in a twist just because someone calls out your suggestion as bad user.

The archive thread has it I think

I'll look again, but all I found was the "Adventures over the Edge of the Wild" 2011 version.

Whatever that means.

Middle Earth Role-Playing Game is so complex and unwieldy that it makes GURPS, a system famous for its level of granularity, seem like Dungeon World by comparison, which has very simple and light mechanics.

>Expecting anyone on Veeky Forums to be vaguely familiar with fairly popular systems

Is this place becoming /v/ but with boardgames or some shit? Come on, fampai. Even cursory knowledge of Veeky Forums subject matter should make it apparent what he's getting at.

Your knowledge of Middle Earth comes from the movies - maybe you should read, user. You would look less foolish.

Not that user, but you're completely full of shit. Magic in Tolkien is an extension of platonic Idea principles; take the Elven rope that Sam gets. It's more perfect than natural rope could ever be. It's strong, it coils well, it emits a little bit of light so you can see it, it stays knotted unless you don't want it to, at which point it comes undone.

You couldn't, however, get it to animate to strangle your enemies. The sort of magic that DnD espouses is way different from Tolkienesque magic, and to fail to notice that is either gross stupidity or intellectual dishonesty.

>'Tolkien magic' follows muh 'high fantasy' ideals, just like tha movies showed me
>I haven't read any other Tolkien works and didn't understand the ones I did
Please, user. Feanor or Shelob, for examples, could easily be imagined to have the ability to create, say, a poisonous rope of strangulation. Remember that the 'magically sterile' Middle Earth we see in the films is the result of Sauron corrupting or murdering any magic users he could find. Which, of course, is why even Gandalf and Saruman practiced great magical caution. Other times had greater magic.

tl;dr - read moar

Oh god, don't use that crappy Fellowship game. It's just another one of those Apocalypse World ports. Fucking awful.

Play the One Ring, user.

That can be fixed by simply banning Mages and maybe Animists. They had D&D tier magic because 1) it was carried over from Rolemaster and 2) that was expected at the time, as most RPG players played D&D. That doesn't mean you have to allow that in your games if it doesn't fit into your campaign.

Also the corruption rules, when used as written, seriously limit PCs' magic usage. But I guess most of MERP's critics just ignore them.

Bullshit. See the magical toys the dwarfs made.

Which is actually in TOR, OP. I had my qualms about the game (and it isn't totally original in mechanical terms, to say the least. It's simple and probably effective but nothing too inspired) but the amount of research those guys put out is impressive.

I really like the fact that the adventures seem legit. I'm more of a new wave games guy, but they seem something JRRT would've more or less approved.

4shared has most books, search for the single title.

> Feanor or Shelob, for examples, could easily be imagined to have the ability to create, say, a poisonous rope of strangulation.

You're basing this on what exactly?

>Remember that the 'magically sterile' Middle Earth we see in the films is the result of Sauron corrupting or murdering any magic users he could find.

What the fuck are you talking about? Since when does Sauron go on a campaign of murdering magic users? Do you remember who his most trusted and powerful servants were? They were kind of magic users. So was the Mouth of Sauron. He allies/dominates Saruman, and has influence over Denethor, both of whom use magic. And let's not forget that orcs use magic, even as low down the totem pole as guys like Ugluk. Who is the biggest employer of orcs again?

>Which, of course, is why even Gandalf and Saruman practiced great magical caution

Again, what the fuck are you talking about? Practically every other time he turns around in the fellowship, Gandalf is using some magic or another, it's only when he gets to well inhabited places like Rohan and Gondor that he doesn't do stuff as showy, which runs directly counter to your theory, since they're the places Sauron can't really get to him as easily.

In fact, in Tolkien, magic's power is inversely proportional to the number of witnesses around to see it used, which is probably going back to its structure of fictional mythology and nobody "really" sees magic.

>Bullshit. See the magical toys the dwarfs made.

And we never see what those "obviously magical" toys do, given that there's literally no description. What exactly breaks the rules about them, and can you really trust a hobbit's sensibilities as to what's magic and what's mundane?

Nothing. It's just that JRRT "rules" don't seem to stand for any "platonic ideal". (personally I am amused by the idea that he operated on "rules" like those, but still...)

Anyway it's Thorin's sensibility, he's the one that speaks of them.

>…Altogether those were good days for us, and the poorest of us had money to spend and to lend, and leisure to make beautiful things just for the. fun of it, not to speak of the most marvellous and magical toys, the like of which is not to be found in the world now-a-days. So my grandfather’s halls became full of armour and jewels and carvings and cups, and the toy-market of Dale was the wonder of the North.

I mean, shit, at least HE should know about magical items, right?

>Nothing. It's just that JRRT "rules" don't seem to stand for any "platonic ideal". (personally I am amused by the idea that he operated on "rules" like those, but still...)

Except they do, or at least, non-Sauronic "magic" does. (and I should have specified about that) Think of the elven swords, which do "sword things" better, but don't do things that you couldn't find to a lesser extent in ordinary swords. Or the lembas for food, or the cloaks for clothing/camo clothing. They all take an ordinary property and enhance it beyond the bounds of realism.

About the only counterexample I can think of offhand are the Palantiri, and it's not even 100% clear where they came from, which is odd in Tolkien's setup.

>I mean, shit, at least HE should know about magical items, right?

And again, how is that not a Platonic ideal form of magic? We never see what the magical toy does that would separate it from the mundane toy. We have literally 0 information to work with one way or the other.

The Palantiri were made by Feanor

It wasn't nearly that bad. It had a few weird charts but mostly the core system was intuitive.
You're probably thinking of RollMaster, MERP's parent system.
MERP itself is very heavily pruned RM that just takes the basic mechanics. Once you have the combat tables in front of you and your character's spell lists its runs pretty smoothly.

The only real hitch is having to constantly record EXP since you gain it elder scrolls style. That and the fact that the magic system doesn't totally fit with the setting.

The "magically sterile" Middle Earth goes back to the First Age, it's a extremely low-magic setting by modern standards. The most magical items besides the silmarils are probably the swan-ships of the Teleri and the other jewels of the Noldor, and they have nothing "special" by DnD standards other than being really beautiful. Among the "magical" arms there's few that could be said to be anything but really well-made swords and armor. Morgoth destroyed the "magic" of Middle-Earth by tainting its beauty, and if he had not done so Middle-Earth would be much more like the Undying Lands

Gandalf thinks the Palantiri MIGHT have been made by Feanor, but he doesn't really remember. We get nothing else to demonstrate ownership, and it seems to be incorrect given the general history of the seeing stones, since neither he nor his sons take them to Beleriand (or at the very least there's no indication they're around in the Silmarillion), there's no mention of Morgoth taking them when he plundered Formenos (and Shelob would have eaten them anyway), the "Master Stone" is at Tol Eressëa with the Teleri, and the Numenoreans and their heirs seem to have more of an affinity for the stone usage than elves.

Not him, but there's quite a bit of magic in Tolkien, even all the way in the "heavily corrupted" third age. It's just that Tolkien rarely draws much attention to it, it just kind of happens.

Take, for instance, Faramir's conversation with Frodo when they start talking about Boromir. Apparently, Faramir, sitting by Cair Andros, can hear Boromir blow his horn near Amon Hen, despite it being literally hundreds of miles away. That's magic then and there, but the blowing and Faramir talking about hearing it are separated by entire books, and unless you break out a map and look at it, you wouldn't realize how far away the two locations are.

The Palantiri in Middle-Earth were taken there by the Numenoreans who remained faithful, no inconsistency there

Except there's no train of transmission as to how they got to Middle-Earth at some point in the First Age for the Numenoreans to eventually grab them. The two most likely explanations, either Morgoth taking them, or Feanor and sons taking them, both have problems; All of the gems Morgoth took from Formenos sans the Silmarils got destroyed by Ungoliant, and there's no record of Feanor or his children having or using them in the wars of Beleriand despite it being well in their advantage to do so, to pass messages along if nothing else.

It's also far from clear why they'd be given to the first Numenoreans if they were elvish artifacts. You'd think some of the Noldor would either take possession or bring them back to Valinor (and indeed, the most powerful stone is in Valinor, so why would they take some but not others?)

>Except there's no train of transmission as to how they got to Middle-Earth at some point in the First Age for the Numenoreans to eventually grab them
They were a gift. Did you read the Akallabeth?

Hm, searching the pdf there's no mention of them there. Let me check elsewhere. I am sure it's not even ambiguous, though.

There, found it
>Many treasures and great heirlooms of virtue and wonder the Exiles had brought from Númenor; and of these the most renowned were the Seven Stones and the White Tree.
Not in the Akallabeth but in the Silmarillion nonetheless

Actually, there is mention of them in Alkallabeth.

>But Elendil did all that his father had bidden, and his
ships lay off the east coast of the land; and the Faithful put
aboard their wives and their children, and their heirlooms,
and great store of goods. Many things there were of beauty
and power, such as the Númenóreans had contrived in the
days of their wisdom, vessels and jewels, and scrolls of lore
written in scarlet and black. And Seven Stones they had,
the gift of the Eldar; but in the ship of Isildur was guarded
the young tree, the scion of Nimloth the Fair. Thus Elendil
held himself in readiness, and did not meddle in the evil
deeds of those days; and ever he looked for a sign that did
not come.

Except that none of that says

1) Whom among the Eldar had them to give to the Faithful
2) Why it was a gift to Elendil's house and not the Numenoreans as a whole
3)When they were given
4) Who made them, when, and why.
5) Why there were still other stones in Valinor, including apparently the best of the set.
6) If Feanor had ever even heard of such things.

>2) Why it was a gift to Elendil's house and not the Numenoreans as a whole
Because the Numenoreans were a bunch of Morgoth worshipping degenerates who routinely did gruesome blood sacrifices by that point, and it made sense to entrust the only means of instant distance communication known to them to the royal house rather than anyone else?

Ahh, but remember, the degeneration of the Numenoreans happened close to 2,000 years after the end of the first age, remember?

If they were in fact made by Feanor, that means they were sitting around for literally millenia under the control of the elves before they eventually decided to give them over to the disinherited line of the Numenorean kings, which again raises a whole line of questions that there aren't really answers to.

Look, I'm not even trying to push one theory over another directly; there's a lot about the seeing stones that was never fully clarified. But the statement that

>Feanor made the Silmarils

Is far from certain or backed up by the text.

The part you quoted is about Elendil fleeing to Middle-Earth with the White Tree after it's been made clear Numenor will just keep going to shit. They only barely manage to take a fruit off Nimloth before the plans to cut it down finally go through

What does that have to do with my point? It's a statement in the Alkallabeth purporting that the "Seven Stones" are from the Eldar.

Again, how does any of this prove that Feanor made the things?

You said
>decided to give them over to the disinherited line of the Numenorean kings, which again raises a whole line of questions that there aren't really answers to
when the answer is actually known and a plot point

Also, just looked the Palantiri up in the index at the end of the Silmarillion
>'Those that watch from afar', the seven Seeing Stones brought by Elendil and his sons from Númenor; made by Fëanor in Aman (see 69, and The Two Towers III 11). 342, 362

>when the answer is actually known and a plot point

Only if you assume that the stones were given some time in the near past, which again there is no evidence for.

>'Those that watch from afar', the seven Seeing Stones brought by Elendil and his sons from Númenor; made by Fëanor in Aman (see 69, and The Two Towers III 11). 342, 362

And did you actually look up the line in those footnotes?

>No,' said Gandalf. 'Nor by Saruman. IT is beyond his art, and beyond Sauron's too. The Palantir came from beyond Westernesse, from Eldamar. The Noldor made them. Feanor himself, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago the time cannot be measured in years.

Note the "maybe". And again, if you do work with the assumption that Feanor himself made them, it begs a whole line of questions as to why they make no appearance in the Quenta Silmarillion. After all, he was planning on moving to Middle-Earth forever, and those things would have been useful. Yet his sons have no mention of using them, and several communication problems they do have in the books could have been greatly ameliorated if they had seeing stones to commune with far off places.

I think you're doing incredibly contrived reasons why you're right rather than accepting the simple ones why you're wrong. If it says in 2 different sources that Feanor made them and the only caveat is that one has a "maybe" then the overwhelmingly most likely answer is that Feanor made them

Here, found the line that LITERALLY SAYS FEANOR MADE THEM in the Silmarillion

>The first gems that Fëanor made were white and colourless, but being set under starlight they would blaze with blue and silver fires brighter than Helluin; and other crystals he made also, wherein things far away could be seen small but clear, as with the eyes of the eagles of Manwë. Seldom were the hands and mind of Fëanor at rest

You have presented no sources that say Feanor made them. You've presented a footnote that links to the statement of a character who said that Feanor maybe made them, and answered none of the logistical challenges that you'd have to deal with if Feanor did in fact made them, like where the hell they were for the 2,000+ years in between Feanor's going to Middle Earth and when Elendil is stated to have them.

You do realize there were other Eldar besides Feanor, right?

(You)

Let's see, I don't see anything in there about communication with other stones, which is the primary purpose of the Palantiri. I don't remember anything about the Palantiri glowing, the Orthanc stone is described as being dull and blank. I don't see anything in there that says his work was never duplicated, or that LITERALLY ANY OTHER ELDAR COULDN'T HAVE MADE THOSE STONES THAT ELENDIL HAD BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE THE WHOLE SET.

I don't see an answer as to what happened to them for the entirety of the first age, and I don't see an answer as to why, if it's so open and shut, Gandalf doesn't know, instead of hedging with maybes, that Feanor made them.

>I don't remember anything about the Palantiri glowing
>The first gems that Fëanor made were white and colourless, but being set under starlight they would blaze with blue and silver fires brighter than Helluin; and other crystals he made also, wherein things far away could be seen small but clear, as with the eyes of the eagles of Manwë
>but being set under starlight they would blaze with blue and silver fires brighter than Helluin; and other crystals he made also
>and other crystals he made also
>other
>I don't see anything in there that says his work was never duplicated, or that LITERALLY ANY OTHER ELDAR COULDN'T HAVE MADE THOSE STONES THAT ELENDIL HAD BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE THE WHOLE SET.
That's literally just guesswork. We know: Feanor made some palantiri. The elves gave palantiri to Elendil. Gandalf believes the specific palantir in Isengard could have been made by Feanor. The index says the seven seeing stones given to Numenor were made by Feanor. The logical conclusion is that FEANOR MADE THE FUCKING PALANTIRI HOLY SHIT user. Maybe randomelfwe made some other palantiri, but there's no way for us to know that for sure

I'm going to take a break from this internet fight so my next response could take longer

And to further elaborate, how do you deal with the fact that when Feanor was banished post-drawing a sword on Fingolfin, he moves all of his treasure to Formenos.

Morgoth comes along and sacks Formenos while he does his little jaunt through Valinor, it's how he gets the Silmarils. Then, Ungoliant devours all those gems besides the Silmarils that Morgoth took, which destroys their "luster" and seems to make her more powerful. Certainly, whatever magic was on them is now gone.

Unless you want to make the claim that Feanor crafted a whole new set in the time between discovery of the theft and marching on Arda, how the hell could the Silmarils be the ones he made? Did Morgoth just miss them? And if so, why didn't Feanor bring those with him? How did the Tol Eressa stone get where it was? Feanor hated the Teleri, remember?

It is certainly extremely plausible that one of the literally thousands of Noldor who were also good at magic and crafting magic gems.

>We know: Feanor made some palantiri.

No, we don't. We know Feanor made magic gems which are stated to have some of but not even the primary powers of the Palantiri.

>Gandalf believes the specific palantir in Isengard could have been made by Feanor.

Gandalf also believed that the fortification of the Pelennor field was a waste of time and effort, and that Theoden should have appointed Eomer to command his household guard and charge headlong into the Orcs moving around in West Rohan; both of which were pretty dumb ideas. Why should his uncertainty be disposative. Why is he unsure when he was around at the time they were supposedly made?

>The index says the seven seeing stones given to Numenor were made by Feanor

While quoting a line that says nothing of the sort.

>The logical conclusion is that FEANOR MADE THE FUCKING PALANTIRI HOLY SHIT user.

No, it isn't a logical conclusion, because the logical conclusions that stem out of the assumption that Feanor made them don't hold.

If Feanor made them, then they pre-date all the shit going down that sends the Noldor to Aman in the first place. These are some pretty awesome magical items here, and yet they are NOWHERE used in the wars of Beleriand. Why would he leave them behind? And if he did take them, why weren't they used? Why didn't Morgoth take them when he stole all of Feanor's OTHER magic gems? Why were they split up, and why did some of them go to the elves that Feanor hated the most, and others go to members of a species that literally were not existing (or at least "awake) by the time Feanor died?

I can't believe you're so pig headed. No, Feanor didn't make the Palantiri, he just made some OTHER magical stones which let you see things at a distance. And no, Gandalf (the wisest of the Maiar) thinking he made the Palantiri doesn't support that these suspiciously Palantiri sounding magical stones are in fact the Palantiri. And no, the index saying he made the Palantiri does not support it either. And even if he made them, that doesn't support it either because any other elf could have made them. Instead, Gandalf said "maybe" so that means he didn't made them.There's no winning with you. Literally everything supports Feanor made them but you're grasping at straws so hard to prove otherwise you're going to get callouses.
>While quoting a line that says nothing of the sort.
The index was most likely by Tolkien user. If it wasn't, it was written by Christopher who not only has had decades to go over his father's notes and letters, of which some still haven't been published if I'm not mistaken, but he also had a creative say in the legendarium while Tolkien was still alive
>Why would he leave them behind? And if he did take them, why weren't they used?
Because the Noldor left the Undying Lands in a hurry, it wasn't even planned. If it had been planned they wouldn't have needed to muder the Teleri and take their sacred ships to then burn them
>Why didn't Morgoth take them when he stole all of Feanor's OTHER magic gems?
>Why were they split up, and why did some of them go to the elves that Feanor hated the most
Because the Noldor didn't say MINE and keep all their treasures. It's stated that they gave most their jewels freely as gifts. Not all of them were stored
> and others go to members of a species that literally were not existing (or at least "awake) by the time Feanor died?
Because Feanor couldn't come back from Mandos to tell all the other Eldar "noooo hold up don't give muh jewels to the aftercomers kthxbye see you in Dagor Dagorath"

I don't know about Shelob, but Fëanor was the greatest craftsman of the elves. If anybody could make a poisonous rope of strangulation, it would be him.

>No, Feanor didn't make the Palantiri, he just made some OTHER magical stones which let you see things at a distance.

And don't mention communication, which was the single most important deal with the Palantiri. Ooops.

>And no, Gandalf (the wisest of the Maiar)

Gandalf is wrong about a whole lot of things, and stupid about others. Yes, he's very wise, but he's also not very good when it comes to his Magic Item Lore, which is why it takes him decades and a confirmation from an outside source to realize that the ring Bilbo picked up was the One when he had all the pieces staring him in the face as soon as he brought it out from Gollum's cave. Gandalf's suppositions mean very little.

> And no, the index saying he made the Palantiri does not support it either.

Considering the Index is a footnote citing to a statement that doesn't actually support its own line, no, it doesn't support it.

>And even if he could make them, that doesn't support it either because any other elf could have made the ones used.

FTFY

>Gandalf said "maybe" so that means he didn't made them.

Gandalf says maybe, so that means even if Gandalf is 100% right about everything, which he's not, it means he's not sure.

>Literally everything supports Feanor made them but you're grasping at straws so hard to prove otherwise you're going to get callouses.

Except the history of the Palantiri, SINCE THEY MAKE NO APPEARANCE PRIOR TO THE SECOND AGE YOU STUPID SACK OF SHIT. NOBODY EVER USES ONE. NOBODY EVER REMARKS " YOU KNOW, I WISH WE HAD THOSE MAGIC SEEING STONES TRYING TO COORDINATE NIRNEATH ARNOEDIAD, SURELY, THEY WOULD HAVE HELPED US COORDINATE A TWO PRONGED OFFENSIVE SEPARATED BY HUNDREDS OF MILES" NOBODY EVER WONDERS WHERE THE HELL THEY GOT TO. THE ACTORS IN THE WARS IN BELERIAND BETRAY NO KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER THAT SUCH THINGS EVEN EXIST.

1/2

For your theory to be right, someone had to have forgotten about them in a basement somewhere for literally thousands, possibly tens of thousands of years. Do you see how stupid that is?

>The index was most likely by Tolkien user.

You mean, the same Tolkien who deliberately inserts narrative lies into his own works because he likes to go with the mythological transmission? fair-use.org/j-r-r-tolkien/notes-on-motives-in-the-silmarillion/

>Because the Noldor left the Undying Lands in a hurry, it wasn't even planned.
And yet they manage to take all their weapons, armor, instruments for making light, food, water, other assorted supplies they'd need for a whoknowshowlong trek across the ice. But they did just forget the magic gems.

>If it had been planned they wouldn't have needed to muder the Teleri and take their sacred ships to then burn them

Except of course, that it's canonically stated that the Noldor never had the craft to build ships like that. And Feanor's burning them had less to do with poor organization or lack of time to plan, and more to do with his ongoing stupid rivalry with Fingolfin.

>Because the Noldor didn't say MINE and keep all their treasures. It's stated that they gave most their jewels freely as gifts. Not all of them were stored

Except, of course, Feanor, who DID say MINE and hoard up his gems because he was a crazy recluse.

>Because Feanor couldn't come back from Mandos to tell all the other Eldar "noooo hold up don't give muh jewels to the aftercomers kthxbye see you in Dagor Dagorath"

Before I respond to the rest of your post: You realize that essay is for a version of the Silmarillion that doesn't even exist and didn't make it past the draft stage before Tolkien died, right? It also mentions shit like Morgoth raping Arien. Christopher used the older material for the published Silmarillion because the new one was a) incomplete and b) shit

You mean, the same version that contains the statement that Feanor made a bunch of gems that might or might not be the Palantiri because they could see in far off places but no mention made of their communicative ability?

Yes, The Silmarillion is cobbled together from notes that might or might not have been meant to go together. But the version that Chris Tolkien published also had the mention that Morgoth was put out of the Doors of Night and banished to the void.

I fail to see how that statement is any more or less reliable as a statement to JRR's authorial intent than the one about the gems. Or anything else in the Silm, and if we throw that out, we really have nothing at all connecting the Palantiri to Feanor other than Gandalf's musings.

>You mean, the same version that contains the statement that Feanor made a bunch of gems that might or might not be the Palantiri because they could see in far off places but no mention made of their communicative ability?
No, that's the published one.
>You mean, the same version that contains the statement that Feanor made a bunch of gems that might or might not be the Palantiri because they could see in far off places but no mention made of their communicative ability?
No, the one that essay was made for is a FUNDAMENTALLY different one where the world was always round and the sun and moon predated the Two Trees, to start with. The things in that essay are a retcon Tolkien made to justify the older Silmarillion as the events of the first and second age as seen through the eyes of the faithful numenoreans

wtf i hate tolkien now
srsly though: i want to explore the game world, wanna see where a given road leads or what is behind the next hedge. i dont wanna hunt sauron.

>MFW people answered ANYTHING but MERP

MERPS is a real, classical rpg in ME. Ripe for adventuring and shit. Unfortunately, it doesnt reflect the spirit of Tolkien very well.

LOTR captures the spirit of Tolkien. However, it is a fairly abstract RPG, modern rules-lite-ish style.

And then there is the upcoming OGL RPG for "Adventures in Middle-Earth". We'll see how that turns out

Maybe Rolemaster. But certainly not MERP. I call bullshit.

I should add that, because reducing complexity is always easier than adding it, personally I would go with the more complex MERP and cut out/houserule everything that goes too much against Tolkienism.

But maybe I am just too old-school.

I went through this post several times and since I know you're not ever going to concede anything in most of the points no matter what I say, I'll just respond to the main ones
>And don't mention communication, which was the single most important deal with the Palantiri. Ooops.
Palantir literally means "farsight" and there's even one Numenorean king who was named Palantir for having really good foresight, so no, their main feature was seeing from afar.
>And yet they manage to take all their weapons, armor, instruments for making light, food, water, other assorted supplies they'd need for a whoknowshowlong trek across the ice. But they did just forget the magic gems.
This is never mentioned. The Darkening of Valinor and the Noldor fleeing happened literally on the same day as far as it can be discerned from the text
>Except of course, that it's canonically stated that the Noldor never had the craft to build ships like that. And Feanor's burning them had less to do with poor organization or lack of time to plan, and more to do with his ongoing stupid rivalry with Fingolfin.
They killed the Teleri because they wouldn't give them the ships RIGHT THEN. Feanor did not want to be delayed. His whole plan was TAKE THE SHIPS

>No, that's the published one.

The published one also contains mentions of Earindil taking Vingilot through the Doors of night and out of the world, so I don't even understand your objection.

And if you want further evidence that Tolkien inserts narrative lies, you've got the impossible ride of the Rohirrim, you've got Ioreth's stories, you've got the "ancestry" of the Rohirrim as continuing from the Atanatári, you've got the anachronistic usage of terms that Bilbo would have no idea what they were in the Hobbit, like comparing the smell from Gandalf's spells to gunpowder, or his own shriek to that of a train coming out of a tunnel, you've got the open admission in the published silmarillion that the Eldar have no idea what Ungoliant really is but then talk about her 'origin' anyway, you've got the Entish origin story laid out in the Two Towers, you've got the Mouth of Sauron calling his master by that name, and probably more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

...

I don't think you understand. The version that essay is talking about is widely accepted to be a completely different and largely unrelated version of the Silmarillion (including by Christopher) that was only started on Tolkien's last living days that basically threw EVERYTHING written up to that point straight to the trash and shrugged it off as being inaccurate Numenorean quackery. Every single other note or text is either part of that version or it isn't, 0 ambiguity, because they're so different and they were made on such massively different timeframes it's impossible NOT to know if they were. It even has its own wiki article

tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Round_World_version_of_the_Silmarillion

>This is never mentioned. The Darkening of Valinor and the Noldor fleeing happened literally on the same day as far as it can be discerned from the text

And yet it seems to take them a long time to actually get to Middle-Earth, especially Fingolfin's contingent that marches over the ice "He and his host wandered long in misery". How do you think they got there without food? Or light? Their weapons are explicitly mentioned in the published text at the Kinslaying at Aqualonde. They have "long and terrible swords" in the battle under the stars. They clearly took at least enough time to gather up some supplies.

>They killed the Teleri because they wouldn't give them the ships RIGHT THEN. Feanor did not want to be delayed. His whole plan was TAKE THE SHIPS

> he perceived overlate that all these great companies would never overcome the long leauges to the north, nor cross the seas at the last, save with the aid of ships; yet it would take long time and toil to build so great a fleet, even were there any among the Noldor skilled in that craft.
>EVEN WERE THERE ANY AMONG THE NOLDOR SKILLED IN THAT CRAFT

Yes, I got that, and I missed the point. But I only brought up the essay in the first place to support the claim that Tolkien, as an author, deliberately lies to the reader in the form of his chained narratives, because he's writing myths.

If you want to toss that one, fine, we can toss it. There are lots of other ones of much clearer canonical status that also exist. Tolkien deliberately inserts "wrong" statements into the text. Therefore, an index note, especially one of dubious provenance (remember, the introduction to Lord of the Rings notes that what you're reading is a section of the Red Book of Westmarch, and contains "Bilbo's translation of legends of the Elder Days"; implying that the mark is likely his or some other redactors, and that the Quenta Silmarillion is likely that portion of the Red Book)

Veeky Forums, can we fix these faults and make spellcaster-types viable without making magic D&D-level common?

Hard to say, because again, Tolkien style magic doesn't really lend itself well to a DnD notion of a "Magic specialist" who isn't that good at other stuff. Everyone I can think of outside the Istari who does "Magic" of some sort also does a bunch of things that are in a skillset that wouldn't be immediately associated with a "spellcaster type" Aragorn has some magical abilities in healing and bending the Palantir away from Sauron is probably some kind of magic, but he's a hell of a good fighter, tracker, diplomat, etc. Any given elf usually has a wide skillset, magic just being part of what they do, and interwoven through the rest.

And even the Wizards seem to have a lot of knowledge and abilities that aren't directly related to their magic. Gandalf seems to be at leats a competent swordsman and rider. He knows an awful lot about languages and customs and tobacco, and he's not a bad diplomat himself. Plus, what with the whole thing of them being Maiar, they're probably not really very good PCs anyway.

Personally, if I had to design a LoTR RPG system, I wouldn't make a "spellcasting class" distinct from other classes that have different abilities. With a note in the margins that NPCs, especially people from the books who are supposed to be lorewise and powerful can be built along different rules; I would probably make magic something akin to abilities you get as you gain levels in whatever your chosen field. The fighter can get a burst of superhuman strength every so often when he hits level 12, the smith can make magic swords when his craft skill passes a certain amount, and anyone with a cooking skill raised high enough restores a small amount of health and a lot of fatigue to anyone who eats a hot meal he prepares.

That's probably a good way of handling it but it might be worth it to add some sort of "spiritual power" mechanic in addition to the wondrous crafts.

I think it's mention a few time how certain heroes and beings have a vague mystical presence. A kind of supernatural authority that goes beyond their capabilities in the physical world.

In game terms it might be kind of back-up pool of points to be spent on certain, important tasks. It might also work something like Gnosis in Anima where it represents your importance in the universe and possibly a means to opening accessing mystical arts and sensing other powerful beings.

Aside from that I think LotR would in some ways work like OD&D where instead of worrying about every skill a character possesses, it's assumed most adventurer have broad skill set. When they advance they will tend to advance in many areas at once. The ultra specialist would be a rarity among adventurers in Middle-Earth. It's not so much about what you can and can't do but what you are best at and what you are worse at.
After all, even Bilbo knows the basics of swinging a sword and making camp.

Does he?
I think he can make camp, but I don't seem to recall him getting into any significant scraps, especially one where he used a sword. Even in the (dire) movies, the most he did was throw rocks.

yes but it's a bit of work. you'll probably have to reorganize spell lists.

>magic is rare
>must be able to do stuff besides magic
>>>/semispelluser/

>broad skills
lol, this is soooo not MERP. otoh, if you never take two advances in a skill per level, you can become very much a generalist.

Not him, but he does fight the spiders in Mirkwood with Sting for a bit.

Not exactly that magic is rare, but magic isn't independent. You don't have "The Guy Who Does Magic". The magic is usually an extension of other things.

I mean, if you had to stat Boromir in DnD, it's hard to make him out to be anything other than a fighter, or some fighter based prestige class. But he has a prophetic dream once, and he has at least one confirmed supernatural blowing of that horn (the one that Faramir hears) and one questionable one (when he makes the Balrog step back) Admittedly, that could be magic in the horn and not in Boromir, but again, these distinctions are kind of vague in Tolkien. But the point is, Boromir is probably the most mundane of the 9 fellowship members, and even he gets a little dribble of magic usage. Other people get more, but it very rarely comprises their core identity or role in the party. The only one you could really make a case for in the Fellowship would be Gandalf, and Istari are weird as PCs.

Like, (and I will start with the caveat that I have no game design experience whatsoever) I wouldn't even really make quantifiable spells at anything but the highest levels characters could get, and even those would be comparatively simple things like "Open the door" and "light the fire". The overwhelming magic that the PCs would use and run into are enhancements to things they'd be doing in more mundane fashion. Your buddy got hurt. You went and got some medicinal herbs. You know a bit of magic to enhance their potency. Roll your Heal at +9 instead of +6 or whatever.

I once made a crossover campaign just to vex the tolkiendili of our gaming association. It started as a D&D campaign in Greyhawk and at a point made the PCs visit the Middle-Earth around the time in which The Hobbit happens.
Gandalf almost had a heart attack when the party's wizard cast fireball on a group of worgs.

>Tolkiendili

Did you just merge English and Quenya? I'm not sure if I should be horrified or going "awesome".

Anyway, I once did something a bit similar, but there the notion that they were in middle-earth was something of a twist: I took a Dragonquest game, told everoyne that they ought to play humans for this one, and they played a tribe of noble savages trying to stop the ever encroaching supermen with strange magic weapons from over the sea from taking over shit. They were kind of annoyed to find out that they were fighting the "good guy" Numenoreans.